


The Lion and the Raven (well technically it's an eagle)

by misfitwolves



Series: Harry Potter Had It Easier [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, kinda angsty, stydia with some scallison on the side
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-01-07 13:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misfitwolves/pseuds/misfitwolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hogwarts AU - Stiles Stilinski meets Lydia Martin when the two are nearly five years old and decides she's extraordinary. He decides he loves her at age 9 and 3/4, but as the two grow older they drift apart. That is, until they enter Sixth Year and have to face not only exams, but the Triwizard Tournament, a Yule Ball, and a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher who may or may not be a homicidal manic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Prologue's pretty short but following chapters will be longer! Read away and enjoy!

Lydia Martin and Stiles Stilinski first met (consciously) at her family’s Yule feast when they were both just shy of five years old. They both remember the formal introductions; with a bow from Stiles and a curtsey from Lydia, before both were elbowed softly in the back by their mothers, resulting in Stiles rather reluctantly kissing the back of Lydia’s small, freckled hand, as was expected of the two heirs of two of the most respected and esteemed pureblood families in the entire Wizarding World. 

He remembers her sharp green eyes, her bright red (strawberry blonde, she would later correct him) hair and her pretty pink dress. She remembers his fascinating constant state of movement (his ADHD she would later discover, a condition not only singular to muggles), his honey coloured eyes and his freckles that she wanted to connect with lines like he was her own human dot to dot.

This meeting was not their last, not by a long shot. 

Every dinner party, every function, every social event in their parents’ calendar that they were old enough to attend, the two children found solace in each others company in this world of expectations and politics that they didn’t understand. As the years went on the two became close friends, with each excited to see the other whenever they could so they continue their debates on the necessity of exams and duel with sticks and incantations that they weren’t old enough, but were intelligent enough, to know. 

The first change happens when the two are around eight years old, with the death of Claudia Stilinski, one of the best Aurors alongside her husband, and Stiles’ mother. She’d been hit by a stray curse while on duty, and her death was far from fast and painless. The curse has been new and unknown, there was nothing any healers could do but try to ease the woman’s agony. So Stiles is left to wait out his mother’s numbered days by her bedside watching her slowly wither away; when she does pass, Stiles is with her but his father is not. 

The two children don’t see much of each other throughout the whole ordeal; a brief meeting here and there, as Lydia’s own mother tries to prepare herself for losing a best friend and sees Claudia as much as she can. The next time they see each other properly is at the funeral; her red braided hair is like a beacon amongst all the black clothing. As he spots her, Lydia sees Stiles; sees his eyes shining with unshed tears, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. She lets go of her mother’s hand, marches over to Stiles and firmly takes one of his. It’s in that moment that deep down Stiles Stilinski realises that he loves Lydia Martin. 

The next change happens when they’re eleven with the arrival of their Hogwarts acceptance letters and the Whittemore family (who bought and bribed their way into the inner circle despite their less than pure bloodline). Lydia’s too distracted by Jackson Whittemore’s ‘dreamy’ blue eyes and blonde hair to notice the whispers that surround the family. She starts to spend less and less time at social events with Stiles, choosing to follow Jackson around instead. Leaving the brown haired boy to mope to his best friend Scott McCall, who listened to Stiles’ complaints at his other best friend having been stolen admirably. 

They’re all sorted as expected: Allison Argent, the quiet, slightly scary girl, Scott had a crush on, who’d recently moved to their neck of the woods, and heir of the respected hunter dynasty, is sorted into Slytherin, along with Jackson (this is unsurprising to Stiles, who always had him pegged as a little snake). Scott is put into Gryffindor and Lydia, with her genius intellect, is rightfully sorted into Ravenclaw. When Stiles sits on the slightly too tall stool and the hat is placed on his head, he silently prays he is sorted in to Ravenclaw alongside Lydia (by this point he knows he has a crush on the girl), of course the hat hears his prayers, and while it shares with Stiles, that he is ‘too smart to automatically be a Gryffindor but too brave to immediately be put into Ravenclaw’, the hat decides to ignore the boy’s plea and put him into Gryffindor, leaving Stiles with the words: ‘trust the hat.’ 

Stiles instead decided to hate the hat. 

As the years went on, Stiles and Lydia grew further and further apart. Of course the two knew of each other; they shared, and came top in, every class, (as a result both are offered time turners, both accept to varying degrees). Stiles was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team (having to deal with his irrational Arithmancy professor as a coach) and saw her whenever they played Slytherin, due to Jackson, her boyfriend as of their third year, being on the team. 

Despite all Stiles’ efforts, the pair barely spoke two words to each other whenever they had to be together, but that changed as they entered Sixth Year to the announcement that their school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry would be hosting the Triwizard Tournament.


	2. The Champions Are Decided

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally managed to get round to writing this, enjoy!

Stiles still couldn’t quite believe it; just as he’d been complaining that nothing ever happened, Professor Deaton announces that Hogwarts, as in his school, the school he attends, is going to be hosting the Triwizard Tournament. He still doesn’t quite believe it, even when everyone’s sitting in the Great Hall for the arrival of the Beauxbatons and the Durmstrangs. He most certainly does not believe it when his best friend asks him if he’s going to enter.

 

“So, you gonna enter?” Scott looked at Stiles hopefully, “Oh no, no way I’ve seen the fatality rates, there’s a reason there’s an age limit of sixteen.” Stiles protested, and Scott pouted in response “Aw come on, I don’t want to enter by myself, and what do you mean ‘age limit’, we are sixteen!” He whined, Stiles sighed unwilling to disappoint his friend, “I know I was just hoping you’d forgotten that.” He hoped that Scott would let it go by this point, but then he saw that the other boy had pulled out the big guns: the puppy dog eyes.

“Fine, only one person from each school gets picked anyway, right?” (Wrong.) Scott nodded ecstatic that he wouldn’t have to enter alone, Stiles frowned, “You know, sometimes you’re just like a puppy,” Scott only stopped for a second as a frown flickered across his face, something that didn’t quite go unnoticed by Stiles, so he changed the subject, “Anyway did you see those Beauxbatons girls in their little blue uniforms – ”

“Don’t bother trying to kid yourself, you and I both know that you’re in love with Lydia.” Scott said, both his eyebrows raised,

“Yeah but that doesn’t mean – ” Scott cut him off with a look. It did kind of mean whatever he was going to use in his defence. Stiles had tried to get over Lydia, really he had; he’d even briefly gone out with a Hufflepuff girl named Heather, who he’d also known since he was a child (he’s starting to see a pattern here), but she was no Lydia (that and she dumped him). Leaving nothing to come of the brief relationship apart from having to face Lydia’s glares for a while during and afterwards, a matter which both intrigued and confused him.

“Well you’re one to talk, you still have that weird crush on Allison despite the fact that she’s in Slytherin, I repeat Slytherin – ”

“The hat told her she could have been in Gryffindor but – ”

“But her family has that code, yes I know, anyway besides what house she’s in, what about that time when we were ten – ”

“Anyway, you want to go enter now?” Scott asked suspiciously desperate to change the subject. Stiles sighed, “Do we have to? I mean I know I said that I’d enter with you, but I’d also not like to die a sixteen year old virgin – ”

“Really Stiles, must your lack of sexual experience enter every conversation?” Great. Everyone’s favourite ball of Hufflepuff sunshine.

“Isaac, thank you for your input – ”

“Hey Isaac.”

Scott spoke over whatever witty, sarcastic comment Stiles was about to say; Isaac smiled at this, “So you two are planning on entering the Triwizard tournament?”

Scott grinned and nodded, while Stiles tried to get Isaac to shut up about the event,

“Have you got a death wish?” Isaac asked, eyebrows raised; Scott sighed impatiently, “Not everyone dies okay?”

“No, of course, I mean someone has to win.” Stiles said, sarcastically, arms flailing as he tried to get his point across.

“Come on Stiles you said you would enter with me.” Scott whined, ready to use his puppy dog eyes again, Stiles sighed, defeated,

“Fine, I’m clearly not going to be able to talk you out of this, let’s go enter.”

Scott yelled triumphantly and grabbed both Stiles and Isaac by the arm and dragged them to the great hall, ignoring their protests of: “Dude, seriously you’re nearly seventeen years old, how and why are you so much like a puppy?” and “Scott why do I have to come, I’m not even entering the damn thing!”

Stiles rolled his eyes at his best friend’s excitement, but strolled past the age line around the cup (much to his dismay, he’d still hoped that they’d misheard Deaton and you actually had to be 17 to enter) and entered his name beside Scott.

 

He’d nearly forgotten about the whole thing until a week later after dinner, when suddenly Scott was dragging him from the common room yelling something about the champion selection. Then he remembered. Aw crap, he had a bad feeling about this. Entering the great hall for the second time that evening, Stiles was greeted with the sight of the subject of his infatuation: Lydia Martin. She stood in all her beautiful Ravenclaw glory…right next to her jackass of a boyfriend Jackson. Dear Merlin was he a colossal jackass, wait why was he heading over towards literally the biggest jackass in the universe, correction, why was Scott dragging him over to the biggest jackass in the universe, oh wait no there’s Allison and where Allison was, Scott was sure to try to be.

“Allison! Hey, did you enter?” Scott asked, trying (and failing) to seem casual, but as usual Allison, being the lovely girl that she is (despite her house colours being grey and green) ignores my best friend’s social awkwardness and graces us with a smile, “Hey Scott, Stiles, Isaac,” She greets, nodding at each of us in turn, “Yeah I entered, sounded interesting and I figured I should, you?”

“Yeah me and Stiles entered.” Scott beams at her,

“You and Stilinski seriously think you have a shot? You’re bigger freaks than I thought.” (Ah Jackson finally you grace us with your unwanted and jackass comments, he thinks), Stiles can’t help himself but retort, “Yeah well worthiest students get chosen right? Figured we’d have a good chance if you were our competition.” Unsurprisingly Jackson scoffs, mutters “Freaks” under his breath and walks away; surprisingly, Lydia does not go with him. Stiles frowns at this, “Hey Lydia.” Again shockingly, Lydia acknowledges his presence and smiles at him, “Stiles,” she says as a greeting, “I’m surprised you entered, this isn’t normally your kind of thing.” Stiles shrugs trying to keep his cool when the girl he’s been in love with since the third grade and has ignored him for years is talking to him again, “Yeah well I just couldn’t fight Scott’s puppy dog eyes, and I figured only one student from each school gets chosen so why not?” Lydia smirks at him, “Typical Gryffindor logic then.” Stiles laughs, “Yeah well not all of us are born geniuses Miss Martin.” She smiles at him with raised eyebrows and looks as though she’s about to say something else, when Deaton decides to arrive and get this show on the road.

 

At Professor Deaton’s approach the cup goes crazy, sparks flying, the whole shebang and then a piece of parchment was spat out: red and burnt around the edges, Stiles breathes a sigh of relief at the fact that it holds the name of a Durmstang pupil, “The Durmstang champion…Vernon Boyd.” A tall, muscular, shaven headed, dark skinned boy stands to the cheers of the Durmstang students…wait Stiles knows who this guy is, but it can’t be, oh but it was, this Boyd guy was the Keeper for the Bulgarian Quidditch team. Sucks for whoevers going to have to up against him.

The cup goes crazy again, this time spitting out and blue, circular piece of parchment: Beauxbatons. “The champion for Beauxbatons…Miss Erica Reyes.” A pretty curly haired blonde stands to the applause of her fellow students, a knowing smirk on her lips. The cup sparks once more: Hogwarts. Deaton takes a deep breath, being the headmaster he has to build the drama for his own school, “The champion for Hogwarts…Scott McCall.” Stiles breathes out a sigh of relief, and turns to congratulate his friend when he hears sounds of confusion. The cups going wild again and it shouldn’t be: three schools, three champions, so why did it look like it was going to spit out another name…because it was.

“Well it seems that something very unusual and rare has happened, it appears that two students have been chosen to represent Hogwarts. The second champion is…” No. Nonononononononono.  Stiles already knows it’s going to be his name even before he hears the complex lyrical string of consonants and vowels that are his first name in Deaton’s voice. Somehow he’s found himself a champion competing for the Triwizard Cup.

Aw crap.

This was not good. Stiles can practically feel the panic bleed into his veins (yeah so he’s a Gryffindor that had anxiety attacks, so what?), he didn’t want to die and he certainly didn’t want to die a virgin (he also didn’t want to die without telling Lydia properly that he loved her). Stiles knows that he needs to leave, now, and so he slips out of the great hall, as co-ordinated as possible, in the confusion.

 

Stiles hears her before he sees her. He’s sat on the floor, hidden in an alcove still trying to calm himself down, when the clicking of her heels and the sound of her voice floats down the hallway, “Stiles? Are you okay? Are you having a panic attack? Stiles?” He closes his eyes, Lydia’s voice making him feel as though a weight is being lifted from his chest. When he opens them again, she’s knelt in front of him taking his hands in hers, “You do know I’ve seen you have an attack before, right? Come on, hold your breath.” She smiles as he does what he’s told, soon allowing him to breathe normally once more as his panic subsides. He sighs, “I don’t want to die Lyds.” (She smiles ever so slightly wider at the use of one of his childhood nicknames for her), “Now who said anything about you dying Stilinski?” Stiles frowns at her, “But the fatality – ”

“But the fatality rates, yes I know, but clearly those people didn’t have someone like me on their side.” She interrupts, smirking at the confused expression on his face, “What do you mean didn’t have someone like you?” She raised her eyebrows and her smirk becomes more pronounced, “Isn’t it obvious Stiles? I’m going to help you win the Triwizard Tournament.”  

“What? Why?” He swears he sees a flicker of hurt pass through her eyes but it’s gone before he can be sure; Lydia’s gone quiet, choosing to look at their still joined hands rather than at him. Stiles goes to separate from her, realising that they’re still holding hands, but her grip tightens and she doesn’t let him go. “I want to keep you safe, okay? I just – I need to keep you safe.” She frowns, letting out a deep breath before she continues, “I know that must sound strange considering I’ve completely ignored you the past couple of years, but with everything that happened over the summer, it made me realise that, uh, I’ve kinda missed you Stiles and I can’t having you dying on me and um – ”

“You know I don’t think I’ve ever heard you that ineloquent, but I understand,” He gives her a small smile, “And anyway, I’m a wizard and you’re a witch, can’t get much stranger than that?”

“But we’re purebloods we’ve grown up with magic, if anything being a muggle – ” Lydia breaks off at seeing the teasing smirk on his face, she rolls her eyes but laughs anyway, “Oh ha ha.”  They sit in quiet for a while until Stiles gently nudges her, “So you and me are gonna a team huh?” He sits straighter and pretends to address an imaginary audience, announcing, “The Lion and the Raven.” Lydia smiles to herself, and then, just like she did when they were younger, corrects him,

“Well technically it’s an eagle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed reading! Comment/bookmark/leave kudos if you want, I love hearing feedback!


	3. The First Task is the Easiest (Not) Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my lord it's been over a year since I updated this, the good news is that since I'm now officially finished with school and have a year until uni starts, this fic (and all my other WIPs) will be updated FAR more often, especially since I have half the chapters written and know exactly where this story is going so yay. Anyway read, enjoy, comment, leave kudos whatever you want it's all good to me.

Stiles doesn’t know why he’s surprised when Lydia sits down next to him at the Gryffindor table during breakfast early the next morning, dragging Allison with her, the words, “So I did some research,” flying out of her mouth. She sits down, pulling her best friend with her, before she continues,  “The first task almost always involves a magical creature classified as XXXXX by the Ministry, and considering the change in the law to do with werewolves and other shape shifters, I figured it’s most likely that you’ll be facing a Manticore or a Dragon; dragons are the obvious choice – slightly less of a risk.” A very tired Allison interjects with a yawn, “I helped.” before she drops her head on the table. Stiles turns to Lydia, “Wait what?” She rolls her eyes at him, “I told you I was going to help didn’t I? And by the way, Scott we’re gonna need either you or Isaac to coax what creature it is out of Professor Deaton, so we know for sure.” She switches her attention to Scott so fast that not even he can really catch what she’s asking of him. He frowns at her, “So want me or Isaac to try and convince our Headmaster to tell us what the first task is, which essentially is asking him to help us cheat?” She rolls her eyes at him, “Well yeah.” Scott looks at her for a moment before shrugging, “Fine, I’ll see what we can do.” Lydia smiles at him, looking far too cheerful for so early in the morning, “While you do that, Stiles and I will find out as much as we can about both creatures –”

“What am I doing?”

Allison mumbles from the table, Lydia looks down at her friend, “You, Allison are going to help train them, and by them I mean Stiles, for this godforsaken tournament.” Allison gives a semi shrug nod type of movement in agreement, while Stiles interjects, “What do you mean by that? How do you know Scott doesn’t need help?” Lydia raises her eyebrows at him before she moves a little closer, “Because Scott has claws.” Stiles flails slightly at her answer, and splutters out, “How – how do you know about that?”

She rolls her eyes at him, as does Allison who’s lifted her head slightly from its perch to do so,

“You do realise that you two aren’t exactly that subtle about it, at least not for someone who grew up with you – I mean really? ‘Furry little problem’? I’m not stupid, and by the way I don’t appreciate the fact that Allison was told before I was.” She ends with a huff, as Stiles swivels to face Scott, “Dude! You told Allison?” Both of them sit up and face him, looking at each other silently communicating for a moment. Scott nods slowly, still not quite looking his friend in the eye, “Yeah, she, uh, was at my house helping my mom in the summer and there was an incident – but she hasn’t told anyone, right?” Allison nods quickly, “Right, haven’t told anyone, not even Lydia – well when she asked me I said yes – but only because she was right and I didn’t want to lie to her.” She smiles sheepishly, then moves her head back to the table. Stiles sighs and reaches for the pumpkin juice, filling his own glass, then moving to fill Lydia’s; she smiles at him appreciatively, and passes him the plate of bacon in response, which he takes with a quick grin. Unbeknownst to the pair, Allison has raised her head once more to watch the two of them, glancing quickly at Scott, before smiling slyly to herself at the way in which their friends interacted so naturally. The table is silent for a few moments before Isaac, clad in his signature black and yellow scarf, joins them.

 “You know, sometimes I wonder if Deaton being all gung-ho for inter-house unity is a good thing, if it means that I can’t enjoy my bacon without being joined by the world’s most unhelpful Hufflepuff.” 

“Hufflepuff’s are loyal, not helpful, that's a stereotype, we just happen to be good at finding things-”

"Well, Kira's helpful, and so is -"

 “Okay, I’m going to stop this argument before it even starts, good morning Isaac.” Scott intervenes, putting down his pancake-laden fork, before he then turns to Lydia, “Do you want to let him know the plan?” Lydia jumps, startled, turning her eyes to Scott from where they’ve been staring into space, suspiciously close to Stiles’ face.

 “What? Oh, yes – how about you fill him in, we’ve got to go get our…books, yes books, isn’t that right Allison?” Said girl looks up sleepily from her perch on the table,

 “What are you talking about? We already have –” Allison stops talking once she notices the look on her best friend’s face, and has received a particularly pointy elbow in the side. “Yep, books, we need our books, silly me, let’s go.” Both girls jump out of their seats, with Lydia near dragging Allison away from the boys and out of the great hall, calling out a “We’ll see you later” over their shoulders. All three boys stare after the girls confused; Stiles opens his mouth as though he is going to speak but shuts it, only to open it again seconds later,

 

“Well, I have no idea what that was about.”

 

*

 

Allison lets herself be dragged down three whole hallways before she says anything, “So, you wanna tell me what that was all about?” Lydia doesn’t even look at her, letting out a blunt, “Nope.” And carries on dragging her best friend behind her. Lydia doesn’t say anything to answer Allison’s questioning looks and inquiries until they find themselves side by side in Potions, where Allison can’t take it anymore, “Okay, you’re killing me, you’re seriously not going to tell me why you dragged me, I repeat DRAGGED me from breakfast before I even had the chance to savour my waffles with the seriously bad excuse of needing to get our books. Really?” Lydia raises her eyebrows at the brunette next to her, her face a picture of perfect innocence and incredulousness “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Allison felt the need to bang her head against a wall. Or a desk.

“Lydia I would like to just take this time to remind you that I am neither deaf, nor blind, and have been your best friend since we were eleven, so really you cannot lie to me, it’s a physical impossibility. So I ask again, can I have some form of an explanation please as to your seriously weird behaviour?” Lydia opened her mouth and by the look on her face, Allison knew she was going to start bullshitting until the professor entered, thus rendering Allison only able to bug her via notes that she could easily ignore, so she interrupted, “Does it have anything to do with Stiles?” At this Lydia shut her open mouth and suddenly focused on the wood panelling of her desk with intense concentration. “Nope.” The redhead dragged out the word, and popped the ‘p’ for emphasis. Allison smiled at her friend and patted her on the arm, “Well you are clearly bullshitting, and denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, but because you are my best friend and I love you, I’ll leave it alone for now, or until you do or do not realise that you are being an idiot and I have to intervene.”

Lydia’s head snapped to her best friend, her face the perfect picture of indignation about to protest, when she heard a voice from behind her, “Hey Lyds.” Allison openly snorted, trying not to laugh at her friend who was desperately trying to cling to her composure and not let on anything that could imply what they had just been talking about. “Hey Stiles,” She answered just as smoothly, punching her laughing best friend in the leg as she turned to face him.

“So, you get your books alright?” Stiles asks her while slipping in the seat in front of them, with Scott in tow. Lydia frowns minutely for a split second before she realises what he’s talking about. Allison just laughs harder. “Yep, got our books just fine.” Lydia answers bit too enthusiastically, nodding one too many times. Stiles just gives her a lopsided grin, which she doesn’t know whether she finds cute or charming, when the next thing he says nearly floors her,

 “I’m glad that you’re back to your old self Lyds, I missed you.”       

 She laughs nervously, feeling guilty yet again for the way she had ditched him just before they had come to Hogwarts when they had been best friends for years. When he had been her only friend for years. “I meant what I said before, I missed you too.” She says quietly, meeting his eyes and soft smile as she does. Their moment is ruined as soon as Professor Harris sweeps into the room, and Stiles pulls away to lean back in his chair with a groan,

“Stilinksi, 10 points from Gryffindor for groaning.”

Said boy looks to the heavens, “For the love of –” Professor Harris spins back round, “Sorry what was that? Do you want another 10 points taken?” Stiles shakes his head, a fake smile plastered on his face; Harris smiles back, “That’s what I thought.” Stiles sighs and sinks back in his chair as Harris goes on to drone about the properties and ingredients of the Draught of the Living Dead; Stiles had already learnt all of this back in fourth year when he’d been bored one day, and so tuned out of the class, that was until he was struck by a paper ball to the back of the head. He spins round, his eyes meeting Lydia’s, who at the confused expression on his face gave very pointed looks to the small paper ball on the floor next to him. Stiles picked it up, finding Lydia’s elegant script on the page:

 

**_Wow. So you really weren’t kidding when you said he hated you._ **

Stiles smiled to himself, quickly scribbling a message back on his own piece of parchment, before slyly passing it to her.

 

**I’m pretty sure my exact words were ‘I swear to god, the man is out to get me, and by get me I mean murder me via boredom and injustice’, but yes he hates me.**

Lydia stifles a snort of laughter, settling for a smirk and an eyebrow raise when she meets Stiles’ eyes after reading his essay of a note. She rolls her eyes before she writes one back,

 

**_You always were one for the dramatics, weren’t you Stilinski?_ **

****

**‘Stilinski’? Really? Honestly Lyds I thought we were past using last names.**

**_If you didn’t catch that my eyes just rolled, and sweetheart I’m pretty sure you don’t want me calling you by your first name. Your REAL first name that is._ **

****

Stiles looks at her in mock horror and this time she can’t quite hide her laughter as well as the first time,

“Miss Martin, something funny about how dangerous this potion can be?” Professor Harris is glaring at both her and Stiles now; Lydia swipes on a quick smile, shaking her head, “No sir, I just had a tickle in my throat, it’s all gone now.” She smiles again, almost too wide and on the verge of looking sarcastic before Harris goes back to his lecture. She almost misses the piece of paper landing on her desk as she turns back to her neglected notes,

 

**Guess he hates you too now.**

Seeing Stiles’ smirk, Lydia rolls her eyes and tries to concentrate back on the lesson, only to get a note slid to her from her right. She looks at her best friend with her eyebrows raised, her best ‘Really Allison, Really?’ face on, only to be met with the girl’s insistent non-verbal gestures for her to read the note.

 

_So this morning really had nothing to do with Stiles huh?_

Lydia rolls her eyes at both the note, and her best friend’s waggling eyebrows, scribbling a quick reply before getting on with her notes for the class.

 

**_I swear Allison if you don’t shut up I’ll tell everyone about that time when we were ten._ **

****

_You wouldn’t._

**_Try me._ **

****

_OK but CLEARLY you want to talk about this your body language is practically screaming ‘I’m experiencing feelings and I want to share this with my best friend’_

_To me it is at least, and I'm your best friend I know you and your body better than anyone._

 

_That sounded a bit weird didn't it_

_Lydia_

_Lydia?_

_Lyds_

_I know you’re getting these notes I’m sitting right next to you_

_You wouldn’t tell everyone about the thing when we were ten would you?_

_Lydia?_

_I KNOW you don’t want to talk about it but aren’t you and Stiles –_

**_We don’t talk about that._ **

****

*

“Are you sure you can’t just kill the dragon?”

Stiles frowns at Allison, “Two things: one, I don’t think a bunch of teenagers are going to be able to just ‘kill a dragon’, and I’m pretty sure that might be illegal anyway, and two, our school motto is ‘never tickle a sleeping dragon’, I’m pretty sure trying to kill it might have a similar effect – ”

“Really our school motto is ‘never tickle a sleeping dragon’? Are you sure?”

Stiles rolls his eyes, “Yes, I’m sure, me and Lydia translated it when we were like eight.”

Allison sighs, “Okay, I’m just saying it’s not that great a motto.”

“Well I’m sorry not everyone can have as ‘cool’ a motto as ‘we hunt those who hunt us’, like what is wrong with your family?” Allison looks at him offended, “Excuse you, nothing is wrong – and what do you mean **my** family, it’s yours too – ”

Stiles rolls his eyes, and flails a little bit to get his point across, “Yeah but not that side of it – ”

“You two are related?” Scott asks confused, trying to keep up with the pair’s verbal tennis. Stiles and Allison turned and gave him a funny look, before both of them sighed, “We’re cousins.”

“What? Since when were you cousins?”

Allison frowned, “Scott, we’ve always been cousins.” At the same times Stiles said, “Dude you’ve even seen my family tree, she’s on it.”

“But when I asked when you first moved here, Stiles said that he didn’t know you.”

Stiles shrugged, “Just because she’s my cousin doesn’t mean that I knew her, we’d never met.”

At this point Lydia walked up to the group, “Did you know this?” Scott asked her,

“That Stiles and Allison are cousins? Yeah, didn’t you?”

“No! – Wait, how did you know what I meant?”

She shrugged, “Overheard, besides nearly all pure-bloods are related – ”

“You and Stiles aren’t though, right?” Scott says frowning in confusion; Lydia laughs slightly, “Nope, Irish origins – ”

“Polish origins.” Stiles finishes for her, the pair share a small smile before Allison interrupts, “And I’m from some French guys who moved around a lot, now that we’ve all shared some family history –”

“You guys ready?” Lydia finishes, sneaking another small smile to Stiles, as Allison nodded, looking far too excited, rubbing her hands together, “Time for dragon training.”

 

“Okay, so you’re only going to have your wands on you when you enter the arena, that right Lydia?”

The redhead nods from her place at the side of the Quidditch pitch, before going back to her thick volume on Advanced Arithmancy, Allison nods back at her before continuing, “And since we’ve established that we want to go about getting this prize or treasure or whatever that this dragon with inevitably be guarding through non-violent means,”

She emphasises this point by giving a look to Stiles, who raises his eyebrows in response, before she carries on, “Scott, you will probably be able to use your speed and healing to help you out if things get rough,” Allison gives the boy a small smile, and he lights up in response, then she turns to Stiles, “You on the other hand are going to have to focus and be as sneaky as you can,” The girl smiles at him looking more like a shark than anything friendly, and suddenly Stiles remembers the house of her family and their legacy,

“Which means that you are going to spend the next hour trying to get this knife to my throat.”

Stiles is about to protest, but then he sees the smirks on both Scott and Lydia’s faces and he realises it is far more likely that he is going to get his ass handed to him several times than it is for him to hurt Allison.

 

Over the course of the next 58 minutes Stiles does indeed get his ass handed to him several times by the girl in the silver and green tie, which hurts not only his own pride but his pride of his house as well, before at last in the final two minutes of their free periods does he manage to not only touch his knife to the back of Allison’s neck, but also move fast enough to hold the edge to the column of her throat. Allison raises her eyebrows and smiles in approval, before Lydia stands up clapping enthusiastically and runs to pull Stiles into a hug.

“See? I’ll make a Triwizard champion of you yet.” Lydia lowers down from her tiptoes as she pulls slightly away from him, a blush rises to both their cheeks as they realise their proximity. Both are stuck staring at each other, Stiles taking in Lydia’s pink cheeks, freckled nose, fiery windblown hair, and realising for the millionth time that this girl would be the end of him.

“Ahem.”

It’s the sound of Allison clearing her throat that finally pulls their attention away from each other and too their friends. Lydia blinks, as if a little dazed, muttering, “I – uh, me and Allison have to go, we’ve got – urm, homework to do, but we’ll see you guys later.” She bites her lip, momentarily causing Stiles’ eyes to drop to focus on it, as she walks backwards into her best friend, grabbing her friend as Allison laughs, waving a goodbye to the boys.

 

“Again, I have no idea what that was about.”

 

*

“So I know you’re still going strong with this whole ‘I’m totally not acting like a weirdo, even though I totally am, and it totally has nothing to do with Stiles’, but you’re gonna have to face it sometime, aren’t the two or you –”

“We don’t talk about that.”

Lydia and Allison are sitting in their (Lydia’s) dorm room, and Allison rolls her eyes yet again at her friend’s words before giving her best ‘you and I both know you’re chatting bullshit so why don’t we give up the pretence’ look. Lydia sighs before giving in, “Okay, okay, so maybe Stiles helped me out during everything that happened in the summer.” Allison’s eyebrows were nearly in her hairline at this, “You did not tell me that.”

Lydia huffed, “Maybe I just didn’t feel the need to share it…until he came back to school with that stupid new hairstyle, and lean muscles, and that stupid face looking –”

“Stupid?” Allison interrupts with a laugh, “I totally saw this coming by the way.” She adds with a smirk. Lydia glares at her, “Saw what coming?” Allison just laughs again, “This, you getting all flustered over Stiles Stilinski – ”

“Okay I am not getting flustered over Stiles Stilinski – ”

Allison raised her eyebrows, “Lydia, you just used the word stupid three times in a sentence about him, you’ve practically run away from him several times today, and don’t even get started on the blushing –”

At this Lydia gives in, “Okay so maybe I’m a little flustered, but that does not explain how you ‘saw this coming’.” Allison raises an eyebrow at her, and suddenly Lydia’s developing an irrational hatred of her best friend’s eyebrows, “Really Lydia? Do you not remember the Heather incident of last year?”

At this Lydia went silent and suddenly became very interested in her nails, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Lydia you hated on a Hufflepuff. A Hufflepuff. That’s like hating on a unicorn.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, “Oh please the girl wishes she were that special – ”

“See!” Allison said laughing at her friend’s reaction, “I swear you had never mentioned Heather before, and then as soon as she started dating Stiles, it was never ending! – ”

“I’m sorry but everyone knows the boy is in love with me, or at least he was…” Lydia trails off picking at her skirt; Allison smiles softly at her best friend, stilling her hand with her own and stealing her attention, “I know Lyds, but did you think he’d wait for you forever?”

Lydia looks down at her hands again, “No, I mean I know – I know I sounded like a hypocritical bitch because I was going out with Jackson and I didn’t even give Stiles the time of day but – but – I don’t even know why I cared so much – why I care so much.” Allison smiles again, “Because you’ve always cared about Stiles, that’s probably why Jackson hates him so much – well and the fact that he’s a total smartass to him, but anyway, the two of you grew up together that’s got to mean something, even if you can’t quite figure out now in what way you ‘care’ about him.” Allison finishes, wiggling her eyebrows, and Lydia bursts out laughing, shoving her friend, “Oh my god you are so weird.” Allison laughs and shoves the redhead back, “Weird but wise – at least that what Scott says.” Lydia raises her eyebrows at this, “Oh yeah, speaking of you and Scott –”

“We don’t talk about that.”    

 

 


End file.
